The world presents many hazardous situations to its human inhabitants. Some of these are natural disasters, for example tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and landslides. Others are of man-made origin, for example transportation accidents, acts of war and terrorism. One common denominator in all of these events is a need to help victims in as timely and effective fashion possible under the circumstances. When impersonal events happen and individuals are injured, the event becomes very personal with access to personal medical information and emergency contacts becomes of paramount importance. In Case of Emergency (ICE) information is crucial to the treatment of disaster and accident victims. Obtaining this information is particularly difficult when the disasters are also responsible for damaging local infrastructure, such as communications systems. Ironically systems most needed during widespread disasters may also be compromised by those same disasters.
Consequently, there is a need to provide ICE information for individuals that is not dependent upon real-time access to communications infrastructure.